Had an interesting experience the last two days… took a long trip via the back of a transport truck. Got on about 8am yesterday morning in Moyale and was dropped off 7am this morning in Isiolo.
That’s a long time on the top of (and sleeping inside) the back of a truck!
Here is a picture of my truck:
The inside was loaded with bags of corn, three levels deep. Made a pretty comfortable bed for sleeping:
The road wasn’t the greatest. In fact, the first 14 hours or so was on one of the worst dirt tracks I’ve ever been on. I was told the road had been impassable the last couple weeks because of rain, but they’re letting traffic through again.
There were literally hours where we were moving as slow as a walking speed – all the time being jounced around like we were riding a mechanical bull.
Most of the time I spent perched up on top the roll cage. At the start we had 18 up there, but by the evening it was just down to 5 of us.
When you’re sitting up there the seat is just hard metal pipe so not too comfy, but the view is great. The bad part of being up so high is every bump gets amplified by the truck swaying in a big arc.
As miserable as it sounds (and parts of it were), all in all it was a blast! and probably the closest thing I’ll ever experience to a stage-coach ride or covered wagon. Felt like I was on the Oregon trail.
Most of the scenery was flat savannah and unfortunately I didn’t see any elephants or such but there were plenty of camels and some monkeys. Of course lots of cattle with nomadic herders.
I watched both the sunset and the sunrise the next morning. Sat out late last night watching the stars and contemplating existence while the truck toiled ever onwards through rugged bush, rocking back and forth over the crazy rutted dirt track we were following. There were no city lights and I felt to be finally somewhere totally remote.
